In which Dracula probably doesn’t drink his blood from a World’s Greatest Dad mug; Miles massively underestimates the cultural ubiquity of Sexy Dracula; Bill Sienkiewicz may or may not have ever seen a bat; Kitty gets possessed; and Dazzler is singularly well suited to a Vegas residency.

X-PLAINED:

Dracula’s ungrateful children

Marvel Dracula

A fortuitously named writer

Rachel Van Helsing

X-Men #159 (again) (briefly)

Sexy Dracula

The secret origin of sexy Draculas

Fastball Special body mechanics

X-Men Annual #6

A nightmare

“Bats”

Yet another Castle Dracula

The Montesi Formula

Sound effects, spoken or otherwise

Lilith

Chairs

The relative efficacy of holy symbols against Dracula

X-Vegas

Characters we have grown to love as a result of the podcast

NEXT EPISODE: Fix the future!

Check out the visual companion to this episode–along with Jay’s convention sketches–on our blog!

In which Leah dives headfirst into the world of con panels; Magdalene will burn down your idols; Sina is a fashion icon; none of the X-Men are straight (but they do share a sweater); you can’t spell “gay sex” without X; and we are all very, VERY in love with FlameCon.

Special thanks to Sina, Mags, Leah, Matt, Maya, Tea, Anna, the Discord crowd, and all our amazing listeners and patrons!

In which nobody but Stryfe’s diary understands him; Apocalypse is the best at what he does (and what he does is remarkably versatile); Scott and Jean weaponize their clichés; Jae Lee does his best Patrick Nagel; Apocalypse is poisonous; Cable goes full T-800; nothing good ever happens to Cyclops on the moon; Stryfe dies as passive-aggressively as he lived; and X-Cutioner’s Song finally concludes.

X-PLAINED:

How Cable dies

The Story So Far

Still more trading-card taxonomy

Uncanny X-Men #296

X-Factor #86

X-Men #16

X-Force #18

An AU we’d like to read

The not-Stüssy S

How to effectively reference X-Men #137

A decoy baby

An abortive escape

Moon gravity

Revelatory vandalism

A trip to the moon

A probably excessive number of hawk facts

Various daring rescues

How to kill time in space

Cathexes

A very fancy moon base

The cavalry, kind of

Stryfe vs. Cable

An X-Cellent epilogue

Several Silent Hill 2 references

Stryfe’s Legacy

Pawnee, Indiana vs. Marvel

Sexy high-security prisons of the future

NEXT EPISODE: Live from FlameCon, featuring Sina Grace, Magdalene Visaggio, and Leah Williams!

Special thanks to Matt for the subject of this episode’s cold open; and to the Protomen for use of their cover of “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”

In which Jubilee is underwhelmed by X-Force; Havok and Gambit make weirdly good buddy cops; Department K is a hot vacation destination; Cable is secretly a Coen Brothers protagonist; you can cancel Community but you can never take away Jay’s gratuitous Community references; Rusty goes full cultist; nobody is Stryfe’s real dad; smoking on a space station is a REALLY bad idea; Apocalypse is here to help; and Miles lies at length about music.

In which you may or may not have your own Black Bug Room; FlameCon was in fact every bit as wonderful as we projected (and more); Caliban hates true love; no one will ever be as extra as Mister Sinister; X-Cutioner’s Song is secretly a farce; we achieve Peak Cable; and the quintessential ’90s crossover event begins!

X-PLAINED:

The Black Bug Room

A good deal of pre-event status quo

Uncanny X-Men #294

X-Factor #84

X-Men #14

X-Force #16

Trading card taxonomy

The opening strains of a crossover event

A concert that worked out better in theory than in practice

An abduction

Several attempted murders

A large number of awkward reunions

An even larger number of inter-team brawls

Two villains pretending to be other villains

Cape logistics

Peak Cable

Many pouches

Many guns

The origin of Hope Summers

Our hopes for mutants in the MCU

NEXT EPISODE: Aw, Stryfe, no.

NOTE: At one point in this episode, Miles said “X-Force” when he actually meant “X-Factor.” If you can tell us where, you win the prize of eternal smugness (not as much smugness as Sinister, but still a lot).